Presensitized Printing plate 7

Presensitized Printing plate 7          By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

We erected a wall on the north side of the B-line and transferred the stencil finishing operation from the Prospect Ave. school to this area. In June, 1961, the stencil finishing operation was moved to a building we rented on Saw Mill River Road. Among the chemists who worked under my direction there were Simon Chu, Al Taudien, Gene Golda, Ibert Mellan and several others. Ibert Mellan invented a way to use the formaldehyde diazodiphenyamine to be used a positive working plate. He did this by treating the coated negative plate with a ferricyanide solution. Gene Golda developed the process of making the formaldehyde diazodiphenylamine condensate. After we established Cellomer in the ironbound section of Newark, we set up a building to make this. I designed, selected the equipment and laid out the plant to make this sensitizer.

Presensitized Printing plate 6

Presensitized Printing plate 6              By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

I took some of the grained and also chemically etched uncoated sheets to both an outfit in Mount Vernon that was anodizing aluminum and an Alcoa plant in Kensington, PA and had them anodized.

We then immersed them in a zirconium fluoride solution and applied the diazo. When imaged and put on a printing press this anodizing treatment the length of run was substantially increased. I therefore worked with Century Engineering to design a line to be able to continuously anodize a web of aluminum. For the anodizing section we contracted with a company that made rectifiers to build two rubber lined tanks with ten foot diameter rubber covered drums. The cathodes were lead pipes that lined the inside of the drums through which cooling water was pumped. The electricity was introduced into the aluminum web by an 18 inch diameter copper roller. First, we used a commutator to connect the roller to the poser supply, later we used carbon brushes. Century Engineering proved the unwind stand; a six brush slurry graining section with rinse and the tanks after the anodizing section to apply the interlayer and rinse and dry. We used the same squeeze roll coating method that we used on the tank line to apply the diazo. This caused the web to wander so we installed an electric eye to adjust the pressure on the squeeze rollers to keep the web in alignment. After a year of operation, the ceramic seal on the shaft of the drums leaked. This was because when the tanks were empty the entire weight of the drum was on the seals. When the 15% sulfuric acid solution was added this lifted the drums up. We then ran this, the B-line, with the sulfuric acid solution only in the lower half of the tank. We obtained sufficient anodizing operating this way.

Presensitized Printing plate 5

Presensitized Printing plate 5             By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Through one of Freda or Gregory Halpern’s brothers, who was in the pocket book business, we met Ed Harraz, who owned a company Century Engineering on Orono St., in Clifton, NJ, that made machines to brush the glass to be silvered for mirrors. He built for us a small one brush rotating and reciprocating machine. We installed this in the space in the Warburton-Ashburton building and experimented with using slurry brush graining instead of chemical etching for the presensitized plates. As soon as the 12,000 sq. ft. building on the 2 Ashburton lot was finished in 1959, Century Engineering built and installed the A-line. This consisted of an endless belt on which the sheets of aluminum were carried under four rotating and oscillating brushes with hold-down rollers. A 30% slurry of fine pumice and sand was sprayed on the plates before the brushes. The plates were transported on chain driven rollers through a series of sections were they were rinsed; then sprayed with either hot sodium silicate or hot potassium zirconium fluoride solutions; rinsed dried and the diazo coating was applied. At the same time we installed a second tank line for making the chemically etched plates. We had occasional complaints about the plates picking up ink in the non-image area. I traced this to the use of chromic acid in the desmut solution. I did not want to use 50% nitric which 3M was using. After working with Ibert Mellan and another chemist, Gene Golda, who we had hired, I found that sodium persulfate effectively removed the smut that formed as the result of the sodium phosphate etching. The quality control technicians would wipe the plate with a piece of cotton to make sure all the smut was removed. We could control this by slightly increasing the temperature of the persulfate bath. Also some people were allergic to Chromium compounds. Larry Golusinski, the son our plant manager, Leo, who was working on the second tank line developed a rash, and was transferred to the sales department.

More treasures from Al Wierling

Just received another contribution from Al Wierling in Florida;  Thanks Al!

Hello again Ken,

More pics with PC memories. During every national sales meeting, we had an awards banquet where individual and branch awards were handed out. Every award was earned but there were always plenty to take back to the branch for inside staff. Pictured here are Presidents Club and Inner Circle Rings which were for sales performance. Also a service award, this one, for 15 years service. I found at the bottom of my desk some of the Polychrome memo attachments. We received these frequently from the main office, usually attached to a report or occasionally with a nice compliment from Ron Muzillo or Noel Stegner. Also included is a Polychrome loop which after I left the company, never found use for again. Finally a Polychrome front license plate that Dick Hall had made for us in the Tampa branch which is probably my newest Polychrome item circa 1996.
Hope you can use these and have happy holiday season!!
al wierling

 (I do have one of the lope on my desk to supplement my declining eyesight!......Ken)

Presensitized Printing plate 4

Presensitized Printing plate 4

After we started to manufacture the presensitized plates we hired a number of chemists to do quality control and then to find another material besides silicate which could be used as the interlayer between the aluminum and the diazo coating. I worked with one chemist on organic coatings and with Ibert Mellan, who had published several books on chemicals, on inorganic coatings. He and I discovered that dipping the cleaned aluminum plate in a 2% solution of potassium zirconium hexaflouride at 160°F. made a good presensitized offset plate when coated with the diazo. We applied for a patent for this process on Dec. 29, 1958. We were granted patent #2,946,683 on July 26, 1960. We also received patents on this process in Japan and Europe. After the patent was issued in Japan, Fuji Photo Film, the main manufacturer of photographic film in Japan through the Mitsui organization licensed this patent for a one and two thirds per cent royalty and technical interchange. Over the years, Polychrome received over seventy million dollars ($70,000,000) in royalties While most of the improvements came from Polychrome, we did get from Fuji a formula for a positive presensitized plate coating which was an ester of diazo oxide with an acetone-pyrogallol polymer.

OPC 2000 Video

This another video found in Heidelberg collection.        This must have been a copy of the promotional video on OPC 2000.

 

Click HERE to view video

There is also a "Deutsch" version, if you like to listen to German

Click HERE to view video

Presensitized Printing plate 3

Presensitized Printing plate 3            by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

3M claimed that our plates really had a silicate interlayer. Their chemist, Case, did not believe we could make plates with zirconium fluoride. The Court appointed a master, Professor Lindford, to find out if this were true. We bought very pure potassium zirconium hexafluoride and he came to our plant where we made plates using distilled water and 0.1% of the zirconium fluoride and made plates that could be imaged and copies printed from. I then went to 3M in St Paul where they tried to make plates using a 0.1% solution of sodium silicate.      These plates failed to print. About this time, the US Government sued 3M for anti-trust violations. Don Spille our attorney at this time got the presensitized plates included in the government’s case.

The government won, so Professor Lindford did not need to report his findings to the Chicago court. We later hired Professor Linford as our research director. Although I asked him, he never told us what he would have reported.

Treasures from Al Wierling's garage

Here is another contribution from Al Wierling; thanks Al!

Hello Ken,

 Hope you are well. Cleaned out my garage and desk and of course found some Polychrome memories. Some are in bad shape and I just do't have the will to throw out. I am guessing the newest of any of these is 20 years old. In this batch I have one of my favorites, a fabric Polychrome bag that was very versatile and a handout at one of our sales meetings, also a water metering kit which we used to measure conductivity and PH in Pressroom fountains. Polychrome box cutters, a 2 Polychrome sweaters given out at our national sales meeting and finally one of our famous Polychrome aprons which I use in the garage occasionally. If you look close you can see remnants of 922 developer on the lower right side. I hope you can use these on your blog.

regards

al wierling

Presensitized Printing plate 2

Presensitized Printing plate 2                  By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

The production process was to sheet and cut 3S aluminum to the proper size for the press on which the plates were mounted and to punch the heading or two holes on top and bottom. These were then mounted on racks with stainless steel springs--30 for duplicator size plates. These racks were then moved by hand through a series of tanks: a sodium phosphate etch, rinse, a 3% each of sulfuric, chromic, and phosphoric acids, rinse; a 160oF 3% solution of sodium silicate, rinse. The plates were removed from the racks and fed first through a distilled water spray and squeeze rollers, a drying tunnel; then through squeeze rollers on which 2% solution of the formaldehyde paradiazodiphenylamine condensation product with ¼ %of citric acid and 0.1% saponin was sprayed. The plates were carried on V belts through the drying tunnels which were heated with coated infra red bulbs. The plates were inspected and wrapped in paper to which was laminated black polyethylene coated aluminum. They were then packed in cartons. We were quickly successful in selling these plates, mostly through dealers but we also set up a number of sales offices to sell directly and service the dealers.

On July 26, 1955, a patent was issued to Jewett and Case which was assigned to 3M. A few weeks later 3M sued A B Dick and Alumolith for patent infringement. Three months later, 3M brought suits against a printer in Cleveland, who was using our plates, our dealer in Wichita, Kansas and three of our salesmen in our Chicago office. Because of this suit, very few dealers continued to sell Polychrome plates. Therefore, we established more direct sales offices. Our patent attorneys, Ostrolenk and Faber, assured us that the patent was not valid. However they were not a match for the 3M attorneys. They made the mistake of controlling the case against the dealer in Kansas which 3M won. When the case went to court in Chicago, we hired Don Spille to represent us. However, the Judge ruled in December 1961 that we were bound by the Texas decision. By that time we were no longer using the 3M silicate process but my zirconium hexafluoride process. Both the patent Court of Appeals and the Kansas court had ruled that the Jewett patent could not be broadened to cover any aluminum treatment.

Presensitized Printing plate 1

Presensitized Printing plate 1             by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Presensitized Plates:

In late 1951 or early 1952, Mr. Halpern met with Elmer Deal of Alumolith, which was making presensitized plates and arranged a license with Mr. Deal, who had brought to 3M’s attention the US Army BIOS reports about the German army use of the condensation product of paraformaldehyde and paradiazodiphenyl-amine for printing plates, to acquire his process for a 3 percent royalty on metal plates and one cent for paper presensitized plates. This Diazo was patented by Kalle in 1935. Fred Hozeny and I went to the Alumolith plant in Alhambra, California and made sketches of the equipment and details of the process. On returning we built the first tank line. I do not recall this line. It must have been in the original 2 Ashburton Ave, building. Perhaps we took down one of the paper coaters since our sales of paper plates was limited. We had erected a small building along Alexander St. to house the gas supply for the paper coater drying tunnels. Half of this we used for a laboratory. Later, when we made subtractive plates, this half was made explosion proof and used to make the coating solutions. About 1956 we enclosed the west half of the second floor of 2 Ashburton and installed lab benches.

About Mr. Gumbinner 2 Ashburton building built

About Mr. Gumbinner 2 Ashburton building built

When Joe Roth was supervising the construction of the 12,000 sq. ft. building at 2 Ashburton Ave., I told him the contractor had not put reinforcing rods in the foundation. The contractor then took a barrel of nails and spread them through the concrete. When we bought the lot at 137 Alexander St., in 1968, I had Joe Roth design the building with the main entrance on the river side not the street. This had a number of advantages: the racks of stencils and skids of plates could be moved across the street and up the ramp into the factory, the offices on the second floor had windows that overlooked the Hudson River and Palisades, and visitors could park near the entrance. Our insurance company made us raise the floor level 2 feet to provide for a possible 100 year record flood. The Hudson River at Yonkers being a tidal river never floods in the usual sense but at high tide with hurricane force winds the water can be blown over the banks. This happened twice during my lifetime but the water was less than three inches deep. Because this land was on ashes which had been dumped in the river, Joe Roth had three eight inch steel pipes driven 110 to 125 feet down to the bed rock and filled with concrete where they formed the base of the columns and used grade beams. The floor was not on piles so over the years it sunk several inches. I had a wood end block floor installed in the factory area so we could shore up any machinery if the floor sunk unevenly. The staircase to the upper offices was suspended so it just required a little patching for appearance when the floor sunk.

When TOSCA and OSHA regulations became law, I took the responsibility to study them and ensure that we complied with the requirements. The inspectors who came to our plants only saw inconsequential matters such as having us put a railing in the middle of the front steps. One inspector made us lower the fire extinguishers in the plant. Another inspector had us put them back at the initial locations since the skids of materials blocked the lower level. When going around with the inspectors, I notice things which the operators were doing which I considered might cause an injury and had them corrected but were not noticed by the OSHA inspectors.

About Mr. Gumbinner 1

About Mr. Gumbinner 1          By Mr. Gumbinner  

Robert Gumbinner:

I joined Polychrome in February 1946 and worked there for 35 years. I started as the only chemist. After a few years we hired other chemists, Bob Teichner, Cort Briggs, Walter Kropf, who worked on mimeograph inks, and Sandy Marcus. I was the only employee with an engineering degree until we started to construct the D-line and hired Stan Mikrut, a mechanical engineer, and Ray Kryloski, a draftsman, to assist me and do the detail. Later, we hired Dr Huang, a PhD chemical Engineer, and Ed Lowell, an industrial engineer. In the early years, I would at times be the plant manager, assistant treasurer, quality control supervisor as the situation required it. As the company grew, I became a vice president and finally an Executive Vice President in charge of research, development, manufacturing, and engineering; then ultimately Senior Executive Vice President. In 1959, Mr. Halpern sold me several thousand shares of Polychrome stock at book value. Later I was granted options and I acquired more shares.

Mr. Halpern episode 3

Mr. Halpern episode 3          As recalled by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

We leased space at the corner of Ashburton and Warburton, which had been a supermarket, to store rolls or stencil and other paper and to finish the paper offset plates. When the time came to move in Mr. Halpern, without any previous study came there ignored the layout which I had made and directed where he wanted things located. When we lost the lease for this building, Mr. Halpern and I looked at several buildings on Wadsworth Ave. We did rent the one on the corner of Wadsworth and Ashburton. Mr. Halpern on looking at the building next to it which had been constructed very simply hired the architect who had designed it, Joe Roth, to build the 12,000 square foot building on the 2 Ashburton Ave. When the building at 137 Alexander St. was finished, I had to leave for a week, possibly go to the German plant, when I returned instead of the orderly transfer of the stencil finishing equipment and the layout I had planned, Mr. Halpern had everything picked up and moved and the installation started. Not only was production unnecessarily interrupted but we had a poor material flow.

In another instance, Mr. Halpern added a chemical to the stencils that was supposed to increase the shelf life. It was done without my knowledge. Thereafter, operators on that line started to have eyesight issues. I investigated the situation and determined that the cause of the eyesight problem was the chemical that Halpern added. I removed it from the formulation without telling Halpern or anyone. The eyesight problems went away. It could have been a field day for the tort lawyers.

Mr. Halpern episode 2

Mr. Halpern episode 2                    As recalled by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Mr. Halpern would make instant decisions without studying the possibilities. As far as sales, advertising and marketing go they were good; but about production and similar matters, they could be costly errors. When I became a vice president and was away from the plant for several days, I worried about what I would find when I returned. The most costly error was when we started to manufacture subtractive plates. We built a room with a silica gel drier and HEPA filters in which we installed a meniscus coater. As our sales increased, we installed a similar coater in an enclosed area along the wall if the first coater. Since these coaters operated at less than 10 feet a minute, Mr. Halpern decided that one man could run both coaters so he ordered the wall between them taken down. We were never able to clean up the dirt this caused and operate these coaters. About three months later we had installed the C-line and used this line instead. One of these coaters we sent to our German factory. In order to transport it to Osterode, we had to use a helicopter to lift it over a narrow, low railroad overpass.

Mr. Halpern episode 1

Mr. Halpern episode 1                   as recalled by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Mr. Halpern several times signed contracts without any concern for “What If”. He assumed that everything would go as he expected. When I pointed out the possibility that the products would not work, he still signed the contracts and it cost us money to cancel them. Two of these that I remember were with a German firm for rubber blankets for the offset presses and with an Italian firm for a number of solutions to be used for printing processes. He was about to sign a contract to distribute masking tape in the USA with an English manufacturer when Ray Lauzon put a piece of the tape along with a piece of 3M tape on a presensitized plate and put the plate in an exposure frame. When the plate was developed, the 3M tape place was clean, the new tape picked up some of the red lacquer. The tape representative could not understand this since he had been selling the tape without complaints. I explained to him that these customers were taping the black part of the negatives to the masking sheets and could have use transparent tape. The English manufacturer then changed the dyes and we successfully sold the tape.

POLYCHROME People 5

POLYCHROME People 5          as remembered by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Of course we did hire some very competent people. One person, Howard Horton, was hired as sales manager. This was at the time we were working with Kodak on plates for their Verifax copier. I was present in Mr. Halpern’s house when he interviewed Howard Horton and told him that he would have a free hand to run the sales department. Since sales were Mr. Halpern’s forte, this did not happen. Mr. Horton left after six months.

James Graves, who started with Polychrome first as a salesman and then the manager of our Baltimore Office, became the Vice-President for sales. Frank Niemeyer and then Seth Cross were competent Advertising Managers. Bernard Gold was hired as our Chief Accountant and became a Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Simon Chu, who Mr. Halpern got in touch with from Simon’s Uncle Bill Moran, was a excellent Chemist and became a Vice President. I hired Dr. Delos Bown when the American Chemical Society had their annual meeting in New York City. I had rented a room to interview candidates in a hotel. I went home at night. When I returned in the morning my papers were gone. Since I did not sleep there, housekeeping threw them away. After much effort I was able to retrieve them. We were fortunate in employing Leo Golusinsk, who had been a General Foreman at Alexander Smith carpet Mills, as plant manager. When they closed, we hired several other people including Jack Roberts, who had run an offset duplicator there, to run our duplicator and test plates as well as do printing.

POLYCHROME People 4

POLYCHROME People 4　　　as recalled by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Charles de Rohan (Baron): When Mr. Berkey, the owner of Berkey Photo in Long Island talked to Mr. Halpern about joining with Polychrome, Mr. Halpern suggested he buy Polychrome stock. When he bought 11%, Mr. Halpern became concerned and made a deal with Englehard to buy this 11% back. He put a representative of Englehard on the Board of Directors and paid them several hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees. de Rohan was connected to the Englehards. He was mostly bluster. He asked Mr. Halpern for one hundred thousand dollars to buy Polychrome stock. He did not last long.

Dean Hennesy had been the Dean of Chemical Engineering at Columbia. Mr.Halpern did not realize that a Dean’s job was mostly administration and did not require research ability. After a time, Mr. Halpern asked him to resign. Dean Hennesy had a contract with Polychrome that required us to pay his salary for a number of years after leaving.

(Wes Hennesy became our 2nd president....for more detail see the blog article HERE ...KS)

Jeff Jacobson to lead Xerox

Just learned that Jeff Jacobson who rose from HR of Polychrome to lead Kodak Polychrome now leads the Xerox Corporation.        Good luck and congratulations!

HERE is the announcement found in local paper

POLYCHROME People 3

POLYCHROME People 3     As recalled by Bob Gumbinner

Ed Fritz: He had been a Vice-President of Enco, a subsidiary of Kalle Germany who had invented the negative and positive diazos used as the sensitizers for the plates. Mr. Halpern let him make changes in our production processes. These changes resulted in a loss of three-quarters of a million dollars in defective plates. When I was allowed to check up on Ed Fritz, I found that he had been the sales manager and had never been involved with the manufacturing. He was let go by Enco because of excessive drinking.

Leon Katz: He was appointed a Vice President and research director. He had been a Vice President of GAF. He did not set up or direct our research. When I checked with some of the GAF personnel, they were unable to tell me of any contributions for which he was responsible.

(One of his contribution was the suggestion to use amphoteric surfactant in our developer, till then we had not investigated the use of this fourth kind of surfactant after anionic, cationic and nonionic.     The amphoteric surfactant have both anionic and cationic properties and we have since then used this extensively in our developer system......sorry too much technical stuff!        Ken)

POLYCHROME People 2

POLYCHROME People 2

Mr. Halpern would hire people for top level jobs on first impression. He would never let me investigate their background before hiring them. The following are some of the people he hired at was essentially a Vice President level:

Colonel Fullerton: The most important thing to him was repairing the cracks in the courtyard. Fred Hozeny our maintenance manager was too busy to do this. When I left Polychrome 35 years later the cracks were still there and no larger. Colonel Fullerton dated Louise Rehm, Mr. Crabbs secretary.

Louis Esposito: He was hired as the financial officer. After we started to manufacture presensitized plates, he, together with one of our chemists, Mr. Cohen, and Mike Wasilko, Mr. Hozeny’s assistant, set up a competing plant in Mount Vernon, NY, Lith-O-Tech, while working for Polychrome during the day, duplicating our presensitized plate tank line. We sued them. Our attorney Jerry Wanshell put so many causes of action in the complaint that nothing was ever concluded.

Ray Townley: He had been an executive of Ilford. He did not accomplish much but did borrow $40,000 to buy Polychrome stock. He never repaid this loan.

Gregory Halpern:

POLYCHROME People　　　　　　By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Gregory Halpern:

Gregory Halpern studied Chemistry at Columbia University. Later he received honorary Doctorate degrees from Brooklyn Polytechnic and Beaver College, where he was a Trustee. He was from Danzig, Germany. His family owned a small forest in Germany which he sold. He never was involved with the Chemistry research or quality control at Polychrome. Marketing was his forte. He could foresee the future of office copying. He was an excellent salesman. When things were being discussed he was in charge. The only person I knew who did not let Mr. Halpern control the conversation was my brother Jack Gumbinner.

One year we spent considerable time looking for a plant site in Orange County. We met a contractor in Newburgh who after a short conversation was convinced that Mr. Halpern was going to give him a big job and for weeks showed us around the county. I did not see anyplace exceptional. However, the following year we looked at a 400 acre farm in Columbia County which had a well built stone barn, a house that could be used for offices, several ponds and NY State Power, which was much less expensive the power in Yonkers from Consolidated Edison, for fifty thousand dollars. I was disappointed that Mr. Halpern did not buy it. When Mr. Halpern had nothing else to do he would hold meetings many of which I had to attend.

Attempt to enter press equipment field

Attempt to enter press equipment field

Offset Duplicator

Mr. Halpern talked to Sigmund Gestetner about the necessity of planning for the replacement of stencils with offset presses. Mr. Picking, the plant manager of the Totenham plant was opposed to it. He also opposed Gestetner getting the Xerox franchise for England. However Mr. Gestetner approved the project and put up 75% of the money Louis Mestre needed to design and build a prototype. Polychrome put up 25%. When the prototype was finished, Ray Lauzon went to Mr. Mestre’s place in the evenings and operated it and had Louis Mestre make whatever modifications were necessary. Polychrome was short of　cash at that time and Mr. Halpern wanted his investment back. Mr. Gestetner bought Polychrome’s share. He offered Mr. Halpern 11%. Mr. Halpern declined this offer. So Polychrome was not involved in the sales of the Duplicator. Webendorfer licensed, made and sold this press under their brand in addition to Gestetner.

Polychrome lunches

Those who frequented Yonkers head quarter will certainly recognize some of the names of the restaurant Mr. Gumbinner mentions here.        One Italian restaurant he does not mention but vivid in my memory is Amalfi on South Broadway where Mr. Halpern first approached two DIC representatives  about their purchase of Polychrome stock.    (He of course did not intend to sell all the shares at that time but it turned out DIC purchasing entire Polychrome stock eventually.)

Polychrome lunches

Food being an important part of our lives, I will include in this Memoir what I consider interesting eating experiences. The first few years we ate in the laboratory. We sometimes made sandwiches. One day, Arnold Rose, an important dealer from Chicago, who had accounts such as Sears visited us. We asked him what he wanted to eat. He said he would like a drink. We had a half full bottle of rye which he finished. He said he was still hungry. Cort Briggs went out and bought another bottle which he drank. He said he had cut down on liquor. He use to drink a case of beer and four bottles of whiskey a day. Eventually, he died of cirrhosis of the liver and his son took over the company.

One of the restaurants we often went to was the French Chef on South Broadway near the intersection with New Main Street. The most famous of their dishes was stuffed clams, which was made with cheese and cream. We once had a visitor from a German photographic film company who ate four dozen of them. Other interesting dishes were clam manicotti, whale and turtle meat, cherries Escofier--a sort of trifle-and mint parfait pie. We went to a Chinese Restaurant on S. Broadway and Louies by Loews theatre on S. Broadway, an Italian restaurant, which had an Italian cheese cake with dried fruit which I liked. If we used my car to go there, our dog Trooper often was lying under the car. So we had to take him back to 10 Baldwin Pl. We also went to Manzi’s on Warburton Ave. There we often had his antipasto. The restaurant was moved to Hastings and Mr. Manzi sold it to Nancy where we often ate until 1990. On Thursdays, if I did not go to lunch with Mr. Halpern, I would go with Ray Lauzon to Central Lunch on Main Street for the boiled beef and horseradish sauce.

Offset plate (part 3)

Offset plate (part 3)

We bought one of the first models of the Xerox machines. This had three parts: a camera, a unit in which the toner and developer were cascaded over the exposed selenium plate and transferred to the copy paper or offset plate, and a fuser. We had to modify our paper plate to permit proper fusing. When Xerox produce the later models of electrostatic copiers without a camera and fuser, with the assistance of Ken Shimazu, we made a paper offset plate which could be used for this purpose. It required formulating the fountain solution with ferricyanide. We built a small building attached to the wall of the stencil coaters at the Alexander-Ashburton corner to install the coater.

Offset plate (part 2)

Offset plate (part 2)

Eastman Kodak had invented a copying process, which they named Verifax to compete with the diffusion reversal method. Addressograph Multigraph direct image plates did not accept the Verifax image which was a silver gelatin coating, but ours did. We developed a unit with the assistance of a company located at 8 ½ Orange Street in Bridgeport CT to transfer the Verifax image to our plate. I went to Kodak in Rochester several times in this regard. Kodak was not able to get the image on the plate to pick up ink on the

offset press. I invented a solution, patent # 3029727, which when applied to the imaged plate solved this problem. Kodak was very surprised how I did it. One thing I learned from the Vice-President of Kodak who was in charge of the Verifax project was to keep notes; previously I had relied on my memory. Kodak mentioned that they had an excess supply of letter size Verifax copiers but were back ordered on legal size. I told them I would expect this. Although over ninety per cent of stencil duplicating was printed on letter size paper, the only people who bought letter size stencils were companies that had letter size forms. Everyone else paid extra for the legal stencils just in case they needed to make a legal size copy. When we made the aluminum presensitized plates we coated the paper plates with the sensitizer and sold them as Polycoat.

Offset plate (part 1)

Offset plate (part 1)

Paper Offset Plates:

Mr. Halpern even in the late 1940’s realized that offset would take over the stencil market. He hired Bob Teichner, who had worked for Remington Rand, the typewriter company that had made stencils and paper offset plates. He brought the Remington Rand stencil formula which was based on cellulose acetate, not nitrocellulose. We set up a pilot coater to evaluate it. They were not as good as ours. He gave us a formula for stencil duplicating inks base on derivatives of castor oil made by Hercules, which we manufactured.

He also had a formula for paper offset plates. Addressograph-Multigraph had patented casein coated direct image offset plates. The plate Bob Teichner developed was based on starch carbonate. We installed two coating machines with gas heated drying tunnels, which were built by Pot Devin in the space where the stencil finishing operation had been. The first tunnel was used for applying a ureaformaldehyde base coat on paper bought from Crocker Burbank, a paper mill in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, which I visited several times. The second coater applied the pigmented starch carbonate coating. The time between the two coats was critical. It had to be between two and seven days for the urea formaldehyde resin to cure, but before it became hydrophobic. We started to sell the direct image offset plates in 1950. Our largest customer for these plates was a company in Massachusetts that printed telephone directories. They set type in a proof press and printed it on our plates, which were then run on an offset press.

Opticopy System

Good folks at Heidelberg saved some of the videos from Opticopy.      Opticopy was acquired during 1980's and formed the basis of Polychrome system division.    

Opticopy made its name in providing sturdy film to film step and repeat exposure machine.    This video shows it in action.

A note from Ricardo

Hi Ken,

Was reading your blog on Polychrome and it brings lots of memories.

I started with Polychrome as an Office Manager in 1972 in Miami.  Went into sales

on June 1976. That year that only had six months, I ended up number one in equipment sales in the country and again in 1977  For those efforts, the late Larry Golusinski  took me out to dinner with the rest of the sales force at that branch.  In 1979 I became Polychrome Top Salesman in the USA, beating Bert Burros of Short Hills, New Jersey becoming a member of the Millionaire's Club in only my third year in sales with the company.

This time I was invited to dinner together with my wife by Mr. Enrique Levy, who was

running Polychrome at the time.

During my time with Polychrome, I've met many great people for whom I have very good

memories like Mr. Gregory Halpern, Mr.James Graves, Mr. George Dakos, Mr. Bill Young, 

Mr. Victor Tkachenko, Mr. Nick Izzi and others, who were so much part of success.

Polychrome was a great company to work for, until changes were made and Mr. Halpern

was no longer involved

Left Polychrome in 1980 to establish the Pitman Company Miami Branch, where I work

for 5 years as their active branch manager.

                      

I'm still very active in the business, where I preside over my company with my son and we

are representing first line products for the industry.

Best regards

Ricardo 'Rick' Dieguez - President

Grafix World LLC

Manufacturer Representatives

and Printing Consultants

Promotional playing card 1960 vintage

Apparently the company distributed these cards at one of the trade shows.     See the old Polychrome logo and a few promotional extra cards.

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 9)

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 9)

In the 1970s, the demand for stencils decreased. People used the plain paper electrostatic copiers and metal offset plates for making copies. We stopped coating stencils about 1978. For a short time we mounted stencils for Gestetner using rolls of coated stencils sent to us from their Tottenham Plant There were many complaints since they were not as good as the Polychrome coated stencils. Gestetner bought our stencil mounting equipment and sent it to the Marr factory in Middletown Connecticut. I went there several times to set up the equipment and teach their personnel how to operate it.

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 8)

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 8)

Gestetner:

Gestetner was the main manufacturer of stencil duplicating supplies equipment and supplies outside of the United States. Their main competitor was Roneo. Sigmund Gestetner, the president, was a son of David Gestetner, who invented the Gestetner two drum duplicator. He with his wife, Henny, came to the United states several times. Once they came to my house at 10 Baldwin Place for dinner. When I went to the back to open the front door, they followed me through the kitchen. On one of their trips, their niece Ellen Buhler came with them. Many of the top managers of Gestetner were Sigmund’s nephews. Ralph

(Rafe) Barnett was the manager of the United States operations. His brother Jeffery also worked for the US division. The sales manager, Cummings, was the son of one of the directors of Gestetner. For awhile he lived in Tarrytown, NY.

I was sent to England in 1951 to exchange technical information. At that time there were no jets. The planes called flying boats had to stop in Newfoundland or Labrador for refueling and sometimes also in Prestwick, Scotland. I am fairly sure the London airport was Heathrow. The Gestetner factory was in the Totenham section of London. I stayed at the Green Park hotel on Piccadilly. To get to Totenham it was necessary to take the London Underground to Three Sisters and then a bus. On later visit’s, the Underground had been extended to a station close to the factory. I worked with Willy Proudfoot, Gestetner research director. At that time food was scarce. Mr.Gestetner sent me to the Savoy for a dinner.

He also took me to his farm at Bosham on the south coast of England. This was one of the first automated farms in England. The Gestetners were strong supporters of Israel.

I then flew to Paris, Orly airport, with one of Gestetner’s chemists Bob Hughes. I stayed at the Royal Monceau, near the Etoile. We went to Gestetner’s factory in MalMaison where stencils were being coated. This factory was run by either a Buhler or Barnett brother. Another Gestetner nephew, who worked in the laboratory was Weil, whose father was connected to the Weil perfume company. Bob Hughes took me one evening to a restaurant which was sort of diagonally across from the Follies Bergere. On my subsequent visits to Paris, I looked for it and was disappointed when I could not find it. When I again met Bob Hughes, he told me the owner and his wife had a fight two years after we were there and closed the restaurant. Gestetner’s niece, Ellen Buhler, met me in Paris and took me to a restaurant that served an excellent Bouillabaisse. When I brought her back to her hotel room, she tried to seduce me. When I didn’t respond somehow she knew I was in love with Kay. Ellen later married her cousin Jeffery Barnett.

Note and picture from Joe Scimeca

Joe, who worked in our lab as a tech assistant, sent in the following update and photos from his collection.      

He wrote 

Ken, I recently stumbled upon your Polychrome archive and blog. I felt a bit of happiness and melancholy viewing some of the photos you posted. My 8 year tenure at Polychrome was one of the best  environments I ever had the pleasure of working in. I learned very valuable  lessons(both life and professional) working under the direction of Gene Golda, Alan and of course yourself. I attribute much of what I learned to the blessed life I have been able to live.

 I have some work photos of the lab from the early eightys and some of a company softball game. i will be happy to scan them and forward them to you if you would like.

Thanks Joe for sharing these memories.

Joe then

Joe now

Don Reilly in the background

John Loftus

Rich Cohen

Walter

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 7)

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 7)

(For those who had witnessed automatic mounting machines on the first floor of headquarter would be interested in the history of this machine, KS)

Mr. Halpern together with Jimmy Marr, who made stencils, had worked with Louis Mestre before World War 2 to build a stencil duplicator which they named “Style”. When I joined Polychrome this was past history. Louis Mestre was born in Cuba and smoked several cigars a day. He was a designer-inventor of office related machinery. He did work for Diebold Safe. He built the night depository for banks. He designed and made two stencil mounting machines. These machines included a station for mounting the backing sheet rolls, a station for mounting the rolls of coated stencils (I believe a third unwind station may have been available). The backing sheet passed over a roll where it were a light mineral oil was applied. A thumbhole was punched in the bottom of the backing sheet and the sheet was perforated to form the stub. A line of glue was applied to the stub and then the stencil was attached and the assembly cut to the correct width. And dropped on conveyor rolls. After a short distance, the assembled stencil was pushed at a right angle and fed through a multigraph with a rubber printing plate which printed the stub and a second one which printed the scale. They then dropped in a stacker, which the operator rolled away and replaced when filled. Louis Mestre also built a machine to attach the pliofilm sheet to the stencil. Ray Lauzon worked at Louis Mestre’s shop for several months getting this machine operational and later it was installed on an upper floor in the school building on Hawthorn Ave. When the stencil finishing operation was moved to Alexander Street, we bought a mounting machine from the Vertex Co. of Montvale New Jersey who had been making carbon paper collating machines. This machine did all the operations in line and had stations for mounting the playful either by gluing on the stub or gluing the pliofilm to a separate parchment tab which was folded over the stencil after the scale had been printed. A register mark was printed with the scale and an electric eye controlled the cut off blade to insure accurate alignment of the scale and heading.

Farewell Dr. Delos Bown

I am very sorry to report Dr. Delos Bown passed away this past March.    Here is the obituary found in the Desert News. March 10, 2016

He was my earliest boss at Polychrome.      He was the roll-up-his-sleeve and show how things should be done kind of leader.        The obituary did not mention the fact that he has served as the distinguished Research Director of Polychrome Corporation.    I am sure that because of his usual modesty he did not tell his accomplishments even within his closest circle.       As I mentioned elsewhere, he may be remembered by some as the creator of the PC-11 desktop processor which he built in his garage in his White Plains house.         

He is greatly missed by all those who worked under and with him throughout the company wherever he worked, R&D, Technical Service, China Partner liaison, etc.

1923 ~ 2016

Delos Edward Bown passed away on March 2, 2016. He was born May 21, 1923 in Provo, Utah to William Bown and Hattie Andersen. He married Margaret Hales on December 27, 1949 in the Salt Lake Temple. They have four children: Stephen, Isabel, David, and Ann and nineteen grandchildren.

During World War II Delos enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He served in England as a navigator-bombardier flying in a B-17. After the war he returned to Provo where he studied chemistry at Brigham Young University. After earning a bachelor's and master's degree at BYU, Delos continued his education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He graduated from MIT with a PhD in organic chemistry. During his professional career Delos worked for Exxon in Texas and later for Polychrome Corporation in New York as a research chemist.

He was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Delos loved Scouting. As a boy he was a Sea Scout and as an adult he served many years as a Scoutmaster. His hobbies included woodworking, tending his rose garden, fishing, skiing well into his 70's, playing cards and reading. Delos was also an expert handyman; he could fix anything.

Delos was preceded in death by his wife Margaret and his eight brothers and three sisters.

A graveside service will be held at the Provo City Cemetery on Saturday, March 12 at 2:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers please donate to Honor Flight, Inc. a non-profit organization that honors American Veterans by providing transportation to Washington, D.C. to visit their war and service memorials or a charity of your choice .

Published in Deseret News on Mar. 10, 2016

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 6)

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 6)

With increase in stencil sales, there was not enough room in the building at 2 Ashburton Ave. to finish the stencils. The bottom floor of a former school building at the corner of Hawthorn and Prospect was rented and the finishing operations moved there. From there the stencil finishing was moved into the 12,000 sq. ft. building we had erected on the Ashburton lot. In June 1961, this operation was moved to a building on Saw Mill River Road. After we erected a building on Alexander Street diagonally across from 2 Ashburton, the stencil finishing operations were moved there. At the height of the stencil duplicating usage, we had four coating machine, which coated double width rolls of tissue 24 hours a day for five days. These rolls were put on racks and transported to the finishing area where they were sheeted or split and rewound.

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 5)

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 5)

Mr. Halpern obtained two major customers, who manufactured stencil duplicators. The first was Speed-O-Print. Speed-O-Print made a regular size and a small note size hand -operated Stencil Duplicator. Speed-O-Print had been mounting their stencils. Mr. Halpern sold Abe Samuels, the owner of Speed-O-Print, that Polychrome should do this. At the time Speed-O-Print was moving to a building at 1801 W Larchmont, Chicago, IL, which they purchased from Bell and Howell. Polychrome bought the equipment and stock. One

of Speed-O-Print’s employee who printed the scale on the stencil using a 11 by 19 Multilith which was converted to print from the blanket cylinder joined Polychrome.

Abe Samuels was a big time gambler. He had owned 15 percent of the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Los Vegas. He took us to dinner at Gibys a restaurant in the loop on the Chicago River. He ate little but placed bets. He gave college football players summer jobs.

Mr. Halpern had met Sigmund Gestetner. Gestetner was the largest seller of Stencil Duplicating machines outside of the United States. Gestetner had made an agreement with A B Dick in the early 1930’s whereby Gestetner would not sell in the United States and Dick would not sell in Europe. When this agreement expired, Gestetner arranged to work with Polychrome to supply them with Gestetner labeled stencils for the United States market. They rented space in one of the Alexander Carpet Shop Buildings on Nepperhan Ave. Later Gestetner erected a building on part of the property which the Boyce Thomas Institute sold, when they moved their research to upstate New York in conjunction with Cornell University.

stencil manufacturing 4

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 4)

I (Mr. Gumbinner) invented and patented a stencil with a yellow top coat and a heavier black coat on the underside. These stencils were sold to Weber Addressing and Sten-C-Label who made a small device to mark shipping cartons. They mounted the stencils to a backing sheet, which when the address was typed could be kept in the office and the stencil be sent to the shipping department to mark the packages. This reduced the possibility of shipping errors as well as saving the time of making a Marsh stencil. We used Marsh stencils to mark our shipping cartons. In the 1940s, much of Polychromes production was for the armed forces. An inspector would check the shipments before it was released. They always accepted our test results. When a new inspector came, he would make us remark the cartons. The inspectors weren’t consistent.

We were not patent conscious in the forties, so we did not patent several other of my stencil inventions. Two other products that we produced on the stencil coating machine were a clear stencilizing coating on a heavy tissue for strain gauges. This was for a company in Eddystone, Pennsylvania and a heat sensitive paper which was used in cardiograph machines and similar marking applications. The black tracing was made by a heated sapphire stylus.

stencil manufacturing 3

Stencil Manufacturing ( part 3)

The coated stencils were mounted on a backing sheet. The backing sheet was a piece of Kraft paper that had been lightly coated with mineral oil so it would not absorb the oils from the coated stencils. Originally, we bought this paper from Link in New Jersey. The top of the backing sheet were printed with the name of the company selling the stencils. While we sold stencils with the Polychrome label the majority were sold to accounts that had their own label. Two duplicating machine manufacturers Gestetner and Speed-o-Print became our biggest customers. Holes were punched in the top of the backing sheet to match the clamp on the duplicator to which the typed stencil was fastened. The original Gestetner heading required a complicated die. Later they simplified it. After printing the backing sheet was perforated so that after the stencil was typed the backing sheet below the punched stub could be torn off. The backing sheet was then passed through a Pot Devin gluer and the stencil sheet which had been cut to the proper size was glued on. The assembled stencil was then imprinted with a ruler guides. Some special stencils, which were mounted on an unoiled backing sheet ha a piece of parchment paper inserted between the backing sheet and the stencil. To complete eliminate the typewriter keys from filling with the stencil coating the more expensive stencils were sold with a sheet of pliofilm, a thin chlorinated rubber film made by Goodyear. This was attached to the backing sheet stub with dots of a removable glue. To make corrections the typist would pull the playful down the pliofilm and apply correction fluid to the error and retype. We bought the correction fluid from Starkey. We purchased styli and lettering guides for resale were made by Monks operating as Technigraph. To prevent the stencil oils from wrinkling the pliofilm a parchment sheet was inserted between the stencil and pliofilm. Later the pliofilm was glued on a short piece of paper a tab which was folded over and could be place over the stencil backing sheet assembly. These could be put separately in the package and used several times. The stencils were packaged in quires. That is 24 sheets. Included with the stencils were 8 or 12 carbon coated sheets enclosed in a parchment folder which was sometimes printed. For blue and green stencils the carbon coating was white. For yellow and white stencils black carbon paper was used. These carbon papers made much easier for the typist to see what was being typed.